DURHAM, N.H. — Jason Johnson ’96 was among the first students to become part of the dairy management major, an option within the animal science program, when UNH launched it in 1992. Although Johnson grew up on a dairy farm in Northwood and both his father and grandfather are UNH alumni, Johnson’s enrollment at UNH was far from preordained. A pivotal event led him to Durham, to a major perfectly suited for him and to the beginning of a thriving career in agriculture. (He also met his future wife, Heather Norton Johnson ’97, at UNH.)
In 2018, following a career path that has included working for a feed company, a bovine breeder and genetics company and the Billings Farm and Museum in Woodstock, Vermont, Johnson joined Stonyfield Organic as their farm relationship manager. In this role, he works with Stonyfield’s 36 direct-supply farms across Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and eastern New York, which range in herd size from 20 to 350-plus cows. In addition to working with farmers on everything from milk quality and payroll to transportation logistics and herd health, Johnson has helped grow the company’s direct contracts, which now account for about 30-40 percent of Stonyfield’s supply.
Another way Johnson is supporting Stonyfield’s direct-supply dairy farms is through the company’s annual technical assistance stipend that allows farmers to “pursue something above and beyond what they’d normally do,” he says. This can include anything from increasing pasture management and improving milk quality to helping with generational transfers.
“The farm generation is aging out, and on some of those farms the next generation isn’t there to take over,” says Johnson. “With these funds, farmers can work with a lawyer or other entities to determine what the next step will be for that farm and who will take it over.”
At least one farmer Johnson works with has used the funds to find a couple who will take over his operations and the Stonyfield contract when the time comes, making it significantly easier for the new farmers to enter the market.
“For 20-plus years I managed dairy farms as I would if they were my own,” says Johnson, who himself has a small family farm in Northwood. “In that time, I also got to see the challenges that every farm, every family grapples with, and now I’m in a position to help a lot of those farmers prepare for the future.”
This article appeared in THRIVE Spring 2023, a publication of the University of New Hampshire’s College of Life Sciences and Agriculture.
–University of New Hampshire
